Race Mathews

Fan
Name:	Race Mathews
Alias(es):
Type:	fan
Fandoms:	science fiction
Communities:	Melbourne Science Fiction Club, Aussiecon
Other:
URL:
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All original members of the Melbourne SF Club, taken in early 2000s at one of Race Mathews’ movie nights (from left): Race Mathews, Merv Binns, Dick Jenssen, Lee Harding.

Founding members of the MSFC. Top row, left to right, Merv Binns & Dick Jenssen; Bottom row, Bob McCubbin, Bert Chandler & Race Mathews. Photograph taken in 1952 by Lee Harding. SF historian Leigh Edmonds notes that Bert was not a member of the Group, so he speculates that this photograph was likely taken during one of his visits to Melbourne.

Charles Race Thorson Mathews (b. 27 March 1935) is a long-time fan within the Australian science fiction community, known primarily for his involvement in co-founding the Melbourne Science Fiction Group (later renamed the Melbourne Science Fiction Club, or MSFC), and for opening the first two Aussiecon conventions in 1975 and 1985.

Mathews is an Australian former politician, academic, author and reformer. He was a member of Australia's Federal Parliament and the Victorian State Parliament for the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

In October 2024, his biography (co-authored by his wife Iola) was published by Monash University Press:

Race Mathews: A Life in Politics is the biography of a politician, academic, author and reformer, tracing the life of Race from childhood and his political awakenings to working for fellow Fabian and great mentor, Gough Whitlam, in ‘the most tumultuous, and by far the most rewarding’ time of his career. His key successes include helping to develop policies on education and Medibank (later Medicare), conducting a major review of the police force, gun control, improving disaster management after the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires, opening the Arts Centre on Southbank and establishing the Melbourne Writers’ Festival.

Melbourne Science Fiction Club

Cover of journal containing Race Mathews' history of the MSFC

Race recounts the atmosphere of isolation and intellectual scarcity that faced science fiction fans in the days before MSFC was founded:

“Science fiction seemed to us in Melbourne in the late nineteen-forties and early nineteen-fifties to be truly “... a universe so young that life as yet had come to only a few worlds.” Being a science fiction fan at the time was still mostly a solitary pursuit, involving something akin truly to “... the loneliness of gods looking out across infinity and finding none to share their thoughts.” Books and magazines were few and far between. Those which turned up through painstaking searching and scrounging had to be savoured, eked out and repeatedly re-read. Often a point was reached where a favourite story was known virtually by heart. We had reason to understand better than most the much quoted paraphrase of a famous 1949 Astounding Science Fiction punchline: "It is a proud and lonely thing to be a fan". (pp. 19 & 20)

Race hosted the first meeting of what became the Club:

The five of us - Bob McCubbin, Mervyn Binns, Dick Jenssen, Lee Harding and myself - made up the core of the Melbourne Science Fiction Group. The inaugural meeting of the MSFG took place in the living room of my home in Hampton on 9 May 1952. Lee records the occasion as having been instigated by "a sort of collaboration between Bob McCubbin and Race Mathews". In Dick's characteristically tongue-in-cheek view:

"Race, I'm sure, was the guiding light in the foundation of the Melbourne Science Fiction Group, for it was he who brought together those who would constitute its nucleus. (lf it seems remarkable that a 16- year-old could accomplish this - that is, the formation of the club, not the seduction to science fiction of a youth of but 15 tender years (me) - it must be remembered that Race was a boy of remarkable precocity. He always seemed old to me - an Olympian of wisdom. Baby-faced he was, Lee, but rather in the manner I've always imagined Odd John would be)." (p. 29)

Dick Jenssen later (slightly differently) recounted those early days:

Race was fifteen at this time, very mature, of a strong personality, and possessed of what appeared to be unlimited energy - which he still has. So it was not surprising that he discovered other SF fans in Melbourne, and arranged meetings where we all could get together - I was included because of the accident of knowing Race. Initially, we met in each others' houses, but the group soon grew so large that less confined spaces had to be found. The first meeting place was a coffee lounge called Val's in Swanston Street between Little Collins and Bourke Streets. It was at a Val's meeting that we decided to call ourselves a Club, but without any formal rules or brief, or office-bearers - and so, again simply by the serendipitous fact of being in the right place at the right time, I found myself a founding member of the Club.

Other Fandom Activities

SF Historian Leigh Edmonds notes Race's early involvement in wider Australian fandom:

Australia’s first science fiction convention was held on 22 March 1952 in the meeting room on the 7th floor of the Grand United Building, 149 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. The organizers had hoped for a good showing but were amazed when 58 members joined. They had also hoped for some interstate members but the only one was Race Mathews who flew up from Melbourne.

Bruce Gillespie reported on Race's return to fandom after a busy political life:

When Race Mathews lost his Victorian state seat of Oakleigh in 1993, he retired from politics and returned to his old love, science fiction. He reached out to members of the original Melbourne SF Club and other friends within the SF community, and began a small monthly gathering to watch films on a series of ever-larger TV screens.

Bruce also noted the opening of ConVergence, a science fiction convention in June 2002:

ConVergence was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Melbourne Science Fiction Club. Who better to open the convention than Race Mathews, at whose parents’ home a small group of people, calling themselves the Melbourne Science Fiction Group, first gathered in 1952?

Bill Wright noted Race’s film soirees in the early years of the century:

On the first Friday of each month, Race invites a select group of SF fans to his place for a convivial buffet meal followed by a movie show. For me this is a commanding officer’s parade.